layoff

A board meeting of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority was forced to early closure Tuesday by a noisy union-organized mob of about a hundred toll collectors. The toll collector staff of 600 are due to be laid off when their current contract expires June 30. The Turnpike plans to replace its toll collector staff with a contract toll collection service pending transition to all-electronic toll collection.

Local press are calling it a $35k golden handshake for toll collectors at the Ohio Turnpike. Turnpike executive director George Distel says it is strictly a "voluntary separation incentive plan" - which we say deserves an acronym: VSIP (vee-sip). Fulltime employees who volunteer to leave the Turnpike will get the $35k VSIP.